House of the Rising Sun
by Hallucinations-from-the-Womb
Summary: After the misery of the Carnival, Shizuru needs someone to show her how to live, to laugh, and to love again. Even if that someone is alcohol-swilling, loveable lunatic Midori Sugiura--the last person she'd ever expect. Shizuru/Midori.
1. The Fall

**A Shizuru/Midori pairing? What the hell? I figured I'd try and screw with the minds of the entire fandom. Besides, we need a little variation here! If reactions seem positive, I may continue. **

She distantly heard the sound of breaking glass.

The breaking glass was the window she'd just violently crashed through. Glass blew out in a sparkling spray of reflected light, a glittering halo all around her. Wind whistled violently in her ears, her hair tumbling around her forehead. The color of the sky flashed in her eyes as she fell. It was overcast, the dead no-color of dust and faded jeans.

The air had been forced out of her lungs, but if she could have spoken, she would have asked herself: "Shizuru Fujino is going to die now?"

It seemed very likely.

The skies were eerily still and calm, the sun warm on her cheeks. In stark contrast to the heavens, the earth below roared with human terror and misery.

Somewhere below, many floors down, everything was pandemonium; the packed crowds below screamed faintly. All screaming for her. There were sirens, flashing and wailing helplessly. Everybody was there; everybody was watching, and yet she had never been so completely alone.

Shizuru's claret eyes flickered up to the gently indifferent skies. Her gaze fixated onto a bird—a small, dark smear against the boundless expanses.

The smile that lifted her lips was serene, even nihilistic.

_If I had any regrets, I only wish it didn't have to be this messy. _

Mercifully, she did not feel the ground hit her.

Only blessed nothing.

-

_There is a house in new orleans_

_They call the risin sun_

_Its been the ruin of many a poor girl_

_And me, oh God, I'm a-one_

-

She moaned as fingers touched her, brushing her pulse.

"Uhhh…"

Her eyelids fluttered, eyes darting around. Her pale cheeks were spattered with filth and blood, and her tongue lay heavy in her mouth. Numb. She couldn't move. Her body felt broken. Indistinct voices echoed in her ears.

_How can she still be alive?_

_It's a miracle._

_Get those goddamn people away. She needs air._

Gentle hands picked her up and carried her away, away from the blood and the wailing and the shattered glass.

The hands bore her away, into the blue, and as her eyelids slid closed, the darkness surrounded her; many tiny, grey wings unfurling around her vision, and the blue burned in her mind, then faded, spiraling down, down, down….

For a long time, there was nothing but velvety darkness, soft touches, indistinct whispering. A slight swaying, bumping. She felt the warm, taut fabric of a stretcher against her back. A blanket had been thrown over her. The edges flapped.

A drop of blood trickled down her forehead and then stiffened against her filth-caked skin. Her throat was raw.

She closed her eyes, sinking back into the darkness at the bottom, where she didn't have to think or feel or care anymore.

After what seemed like a long time, the haze lifted slightly and the grey wings withdrew. She opened her eyes again and moaned. The room was stark and bone-white—ceilings, walls, floor. Even the clean, crisp bed-sheets were the sickly color of bone. Everything was sterile, colorless, bloodless. Hospital room.

Vision fading in, out, in. Wings fluttering at the edges of her periphery. The sky was gone, and she felt like crying. The sky had fled, she had lost it. A large, pale blur loomed in her vision, and she recoiled back, shrinking into her pillow.

The nurse reached out a gentle hand wiping a damp white cloth along her forehead. It came off stained black and red. Her raw throat burned feverishly.

"Shizuru Fujino. You know me. My name is Youko Sagisawa. Can you hear me?"

She struggled, working her throat. At first, all that came out was a faint, raspy croak. The second time, she succeeded, although it was barely audible.

"The spot won't come out."

Youko's brow creased. "What?"

Too late. She was already gone, plunging backwards into the infinite, the grey wings rising and unfurling across the blinding whiteness.

–

In Midori Sugiura's apartment, the television hummed. In the kitchen, a phone rang insistently.

"We bring to you breaking news….the daughter of a well-known, wealthy Kyoto-based family was privately hospitalized today following a undisclosed commotion at the main headquarters of Iwasaki Pharmaceutical in Fuuka's business district. Details are unclear, but eyewitnesses claimed that the young woman fell from the twenty-first floor. It is unknown whether she jumped, or was pushed. If anyone has information on this incident, please notify the authorities…."

Midori paused, her hand frozen above a steaming bowl of noodles, the seasoning dripping from the bottle in her clenched fist. She drew a deep, shaky breath and picked up the ringing cell phone from the counter.

"Youko? Yeah, the news…I just saw it. You're already there? Okay, I'm coming."


	2. The Lady With Her Face

**This chapter seems sober and surreal, but nah, this story won't be an angst-ridden one. Enjoooy. Some people might recognize the second part...yeah, can you tell I love writing that particular character?**

Midori thundered through the hallways of the hospital, ignoring the glares of the nurses and orderlies. She barreled into another corridor—the Intensive Care department. There was one door labeled FUJINO, and she barged into it, the door slamming open and swinging hard behind her.

Youko glanced up, shocked. "Christ, you gave me a turn. That was fast."

"Ran down some red lights," Midori's words were slightly muffled; she was out of breath. As she regained her bearings, she looked around in astonishment. The room was flooded with an explosion of bouquets in hundreds of different colors and sizes. "The hell…? What's up with all the flowers?"

Youko tilted her heads towards the displays. "Word got out fast, I guess. But thanks for coming. I needed your help."

"But what for? I'm no doctor," Midori slid into a seat opposite Youko. The bed was between them, but she was trying not to look at the bloodied mess that lay in it. She was afraid of how she'd react, and tried to distract herself by staring fixedly at Youko's face.

Youko rubbed her cheeks, weariness deep in her eyes. "Well, you spent more time with those kids than I did…you both were Himes, right? You know who her friends are. Maybe emergency numbers to contact? You were her teacher, you had access to that information."

Midori sank back into her seat. "I never really knew her that well. I never really saw her hanging out with anyone besides her fangirls and Natsuki when she was still in high school. Natsuki's at a foreign university overseas. From what I hear, there isn't a lot of love lost between her and some of the other Himes, but I'll see what I can dig up, I guess."

The door opened again, and both women looked up. Mai Tokiha stood nervously in the entryway, and behind her was Reito Minagi and his younger sibling, Mikoto.

"We came as quickly as I could when we heard the news on the television," Mai said in a subdued voice. "I hope we aren't intruding."

Midori shook her head. "Nah. It's visiting hours…right?"

Youko shrugged. "Yes. But Shizuru hasn't had any visitors so far, except for all those flowers that were sent in."

Reito's brow creased. "But nobody actually came in person?"

Youko nodded, and the young man grimaced. "That saddens me, but I'm not too surprised. Shizuru always kept most people at arms' length."

There was an awkward silence, and all eyes drifted to the girl in the bed. It was difficult to look, but look they did. What was in the bed didn't resemble Shizuru Fujino so much as a broken vase that had been pieced back together. Gone were the beautiful, elegant features they were all so used to seeing. Shizuru Fujino's face was raw and exposed, bruised all over and scabbed over with blood. Youko had been cleaning it up to the best of her ability, but it was still painful to look at.

A quiet sob welled up in Mai's chest, and Mikoto quietly took her hand. Midori cleared her throat awkwardly. "Um, does anyone know how to contact Natsuki?"

Mai nodded slowly. "I can call her. "

Slowly, the room emptied of people until it was just Midori and Youko again, and the sad broken woman in the bed.

"Three people? That's it? I thought everybody loved Shizuru Fujino," Midori said, frustrated. She rubbed a hand through her hair, and sighed, staring at the woman in the bed. "You're a queer one, Fujino."

••••••

­­­

Pain. There was nothing else quite as permeating and paradoxically insubstantial, except perhaps for sexual pleasure. It was cloying and thick, racking her with white-hot lances of pain all throughout her body; she felt more like a pile of splinters and broken glass than an intact human being.

In this world, time meant very little to her, and she cared even less. Whether it had been days, weeks, or even months, she didn't know. Information from the outside world filtered to her in broken, jumbled bits and pieces, as incoherent as dreams.

She was trapped in her uselessly broken sack of a body, so the only way to escape the pain was to sink into it, and so she gave herself over, feeling her consciousness like a small, guttering flame borne on an oily red ocean. The ocean was very deep and very red—it held all the colors of red in it like a rainbow of varying saturation, from the deep, purplish color found in fine wines to the bright shrillness of arterial blood.

After what could have been years, or a mere few seconds—for time's passage was still just an afterthought—Shizuru found herself rising from the depths of the ocean, gently floating towards the surface. It seemed that her hazy red surroundings had actually taken on a life and shape of its own from her own fevered imagination, but now she wasn't sure if she was actually still dreaming.

She broke surface and unconsciously gasped for air, although such things shouldn't really have mattered. She relaxed and let herself float, staring listlessly at the sky. It was a deep shade of rosy pink and cloudless.

_the sky was the last thing I saw_

"But it was blue and had clouds," Shizuru answered her own thoughts, almost startling herself.

With the strange absence of linearity that was so common in dreams, Shizuru was no longer floating but standing in the midst of the red ocean, allowing it to wash across her bare legs in gentle laps. It gave her an opportunity to look around, although she was unsurprised to see that the bloody ocean stretched on for what seemed like infinity in all directions, vanishing into the distant horizons without any sign of ending.

The silence was oppressive and heavy.

"Hello, Mother. Why are you naked?"

Shizuru Fujino, long admired by the slavering legions for her almost saint-like ability to remain relaxed and charming even in the worst of situations, yelped like a timid dog. Immediately, embarrassment rippled through her in a dull flush and she turned around, quietly seething.

The speaker that had surprised her so badly earlier met her gaze with cool amusement, and Shizuru Fujino was further lost for words.

The other woman had her face. She might as well have been staring into a mirror, except for several cosmetic differences. The stranger's hair—while as equally long and lustrous as hers, was a rich deep brown, with undertones of burnished red. Her eyes were also a unnatural golden color, but they had none of the warmth traditionally associated with that color. They were more like brass, cold and distant.

"I—I—excuse me?" Flustered and unused to being thrown off balance, Shizuru looked down quickly, checking herself. She wasn't wearing anything. _Oh, bloody hell._

"Ladies as pretty as you ssssshouldn't ssssswear," the stranger with Shizuru's face said, languorously drawing out her S's.

Shizuru glared at her—a terrifying thing to be on the receiving end of. If any of her admirers from Fuuka had ever received that look, they'd most likely have committed seppuku right on the spot, which was why Shizuru never did it, however much she might have wished to.

"What is this?" She asked, ignoring the taunting tone in the nameless woman's previous remark.

The stranger with Shizuru's face looked visibly wounded. "You don't recognize me? Not even after I addressed you as Mother?"

Shizuru's brow creased (something her mother had always admonished her never, _ever_ to do, because it'd apparently cause wrinkles) and she unconsciously crossed one arm over her chest, gripping her other arm. "You're…Kiyohime?"

The woman laughed softly and clapped her hands. Her laughter sounded like the hissing of snakes. "Wonderful! Yesssss, that is my name. One of them, at least."

Shizuru felt uneasy. She wasn't sure how to treat her former Child in this new context. Politeness was perhaps her best course for now. "Forgive me…I'm just confused. The last thing I remember was falling, and then a hospital room…at this point I honestly can't tell if I'm dreaming, hallucinating, or already dead."

Kiyohime's golden eyes (_of course they were golden,_ Shizuru thought, _they had always been golden, no matter what body she wore_) gleamed. "You aren't dead. But you aren't hallucinating, and I am no dream. Just think of this as briefly opening reality's backdoor a few inches open, peering out through the crack into what lies beyond. I just thought I would pop in on over and say hello, keep you company for a bit."

_Some company_, Shizuru thought. She didn't really know whether to take Kiyohime's words as truth or if this was still part of some delusion, but trying to puzzle it through made her head hurt.

"Well…" Shizuru began slowly. "Thank you for the company, I guess. You look different." She felt ridiculous stating the obvious, but there wasn't really much else to talk about.

Kiyohime shrugged with a peculiar combination of modesty and arrogance. "Well, naturally, I wasn't born looking like a great big monster. I was beautiful once, like you are now."

"Ah…" Shizuru was at a brief loss for words yet again. This was turning out to be a poor track record on her part.

Kiyohime smiled. "Why so tense, Mother? We worked together in a professional aspect. It's not as though I'm some random stranger."

Shizuru shrugged her shoulders slightly. "Well, one tends to find oneself somewhat…discombobulated when they've just fallen off a building and wake up in a ocean of what appears to be blood, talking to something—_someone_—they never thought they'd see again. This kind of thing doesn't happen in real life."

"Well, don't you think the Carnival had its own fair share of oddness? By now, this should be nothing to you," Kiyohime said breezily. "There's a lot more to the universe than you would think, so blinded by the shallow day-to-day reality your species lead. Existences as short and difficult as your lives are quite hobbling to the exploration of the deeper mysteries surrounding yourselves."

"Well, sorry," Shizuru said snidely, eliciting a delighted burst of laughter.

"It's refreshing to hear such candidness from you, Mother. You were always a hard nut t crack."

"I try. What else do you want to hear?"

"I think you've picked up some of that bluntness from Duran's mother, hmm. Those two were quite well-matched—you can't really get more blunt than a great big pair of cannons blasting you in the face. As I recall, that _did_ happen to me. Once."

Shizuru had the good grace to wince slightly at that. "Well…Natsuki was the one who ordered him to fire, as I recall."

Kiyohime rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. Details, details."

"Do you and all the other Childs…." Shizuru paused, unsure of how to word it. "Do you all speak to one another often?"

Kiyohime rubbed her cheek. "In a manner of speaking. Some of their personalities are too annoyingly simplistic for me to tolerate for long—like Gakutenou. Well, no, actually. He's not even half as bad as Miroku or Yatagarasu. Or Kagutsuchi—good lord, don't get me started in on that one. Absolutely no finesse at all. Julia isn't half bad, though."

As fascinating as this meandering conversation was, Shizuru found herself wanting to move things along. "You said I wasn't dead. But if that's the case, what's going on? I feel like you're trying to distract me."

Kiyohime propped her elbow up with the palm of her hand, placing a fist under her chin in a gesture that eerily reflected Shizuru's own habit. "Well, yes. Anything's better than grim news. I figured a visit from an old friend would cheer you up."

Shizuru's heart sank. "Have I died?"

Kiyohime grinned. It wasn't a very tactful one. "No. If you want to badly enough, you'll wake up. But it'll be slow and tedious. It'll be a long, painful recovery. I'm inviting you to leave all of that behind, and come away with me."

"Where to?" Shizuru whispered.

Laughter danced in Kiyohime's golden eyes. "Where everything's from and nobody knows, that's where we'll go."

"You're speaking in riddles."

Kiyohime shrugged. "It's your choice, Shizuru. Stay tethered to the world of drudgery and pain. Or let go of your broken body and dreams, and come see what lies behind the curtain. It's a good prospect, hmm?"

For one drawn-out moment, Shizuru very nearly conceded. But her mind flickered back to the blue skies, and they reminded her of blue-black hair, like the underside of a raven. Green eyes, like the grass she might never see again. A tentative, flickering friendship, doused forever like a candle.

She couldn't accept that.

"Shame," Kiyohime's lips pursed. "You are certainly tenacious….and helplessly stubborn, as I once was. But I am patient. I will come and see you again someday…and who knows what your answer might be, then?"

"We'll see," Shizuru murmured evasively. "But thank you, nonetheless."

Kiyohime sighed distastefully. "You disappoint me. Very well, Mother…but I still wish to give you some parting advice. Don't make the same mistake I did. Don't sit around waiting forever. Your feelings of love are double-edged. It will turn on you, poison you, as mine did, and you will be lost to hatred. Shizuru, you're filled with love, with need, but you have no way to express it. You need to start opening up. Remember, when our souls resonated as Child and Hime, your emotions were what fed me. They deserve to be tended with care, to bloom just as richly as the flower gardens of Fuuka."

Shizuru lifted her head, astounded. She wanted to say something, to respond…

"No." Kiyohime lifted a slender, beautiful hand, and then Shizuru was falling backwards, falling into the red ocean, darkness gushing across her eyes, and then, nothing—

The darkness shattered—blasted open by a voice that was bigger than the world, a clarion voice rumbling and rolling into her, blasting apart the cloying haze—

_**"SHIZURU FUJINO. CAN YOU HEAR ME?"**_

It sounded like Youko Sagisawa's voice. Shizuru opened her mouth blindly, but no voice came out. The red darkness was too thick.

_**"SHIZURU, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, TRY TO MOVE. GIVE ME A SIGNAL."**_

Shizuru tried. She desperately tried—to reach through the muddling layers of pain and wavering unconsciousness—it felt like lifting a mountain, but she slammed into it with pure will. It was an Herculean effort. And then, yes, something, _something _was—

Another deafening voice blared, trumpeting through the darkness. She didn't know the second voice, but it sounded younger, vaguely familiar.

_**"DID YOU SEE THAT? HER FINGERS TWITCHED!"**_

_Good_, Shizuru thought, _now leave me alone._ And she sank back into the muddled red darkness.


End file.
